Despite the media hysteria over President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants since taking office, data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security shows the actual number deportations lag far behind Obama era figures.

Data shows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed fewer illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2017 than during any of the previous 13 years – which stretches through Obama’s entire presidency and into the last five years of the George W. Bush administration..

Talk Media News reports:

In fiscal year 2016, ICE removed 240,255 people from the country — a rate of more than 20,000 people per month. In fiscal year 2012 — the peak year for deportations under Obama — the agency removed an average of roughly 34,000 people per month.

From Feb. 1 to June 30, 2017, ICE officials removed 84,473 people — a rate of roughly 16,900 people per month.

ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan attributed the decrease to a southern border that’s “under better control” than during previous administrations, as evidenced by far fewer southwest border apprehensions in 2017 than the year prior.

“The FY2017 statistics clearly demonstrate ICE’s continued commitment to identifying, arresting, and removing aliens who are in violation of U.S. law, particularly those posing a public safety or national security threat, while restoring fidelity to the rule of law,” according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection report.

The report echoes Trump’s campaign promise of restoring “law and order” in the immigration system. And despite the deportation figures, it seems the president has kept his promise.

“ICE officers arrested far more suspected undocumented immigrants in the months after Trump took office than in the same period in 2016,” TMN reports. “Between Jan. 20 and Sept. 30, 2017, the agency arrested nearly 111,000 people – a 42 percent increase over the prior year, DHS data shows.”

In total, deportations in 2017 were down 6 percent from Obama’s last year in office.

Regardless, the Trump administration’s pressure on countries to take back illegal immigrants deported from the United States seems to be working. The number of countries who refused to cooperate dropped from 12 in April 2017 to just nine by year’s end.

The number of countries “at risk of being labeled uncooperative” also decreased from 47 to 36, the news site reports.

“The U.S. … applied visa sanctions to four countries in FY2017 for failure to cooperate, which sends a clear message: cooperate of race consequences,” according to the CBP report.

CBP officials noted in the report that while fewer people were arrested trying to cross the border under Trump, arrests in the interior U.S. made up much of the difference.

“Administrative arrests began to increase after January 25, 2017, when (Trump’s executive order on immigration) was issued,” according to the report. “The analysis of administrative arrested conducted per week shows an elevated level of enforcement as compared with FY2016, beginning just after the new Administration took office during FY2017.”